


The Valkyrie on the Corner

by illwynd



Series: Journey Into... (de-aged!Thor AU) [2]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Caretaking, Family Issues, Gen, Halloween, Horror, Monsters, Winter, de-aged Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: The villain Loki is taking care of his brother (who has been accidentally magically de-aged into a small child) on Midgard, and at the end of October, Loki lets Thor enjoy the fun of trick-or-treating. But then Thor sees a strange woman on the street corner... and that isn’t a costume she’s wearing.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: Journey Into... (de-aged!Thor AU) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996648
Comments: 61
Kudos: 68





	1. For the Turning of Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who has been following my [bb Thor snippets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22970644/chapters/54911692), this story is based on a similar premise but doesn't necessarily fit any of those exactly. Also, the first couple chapters of this were posted on tumblr for Halloween. However, they have changed somewhat along the way, so you may want to re-read this version even if you read that one before. 
> 
> I wanted to get this posted around Yule for reasons that may become apparent. Eh, close enough.
> 
> Finally, my gratitude goes to Fishie and Schaudy for giving this a read-through! Who knows how long this thing would have languished otherwise. Y'all are awesome <3

It was one of the more surreal experiences of Loki’s life, leading his currently-younger brother down the leaf-strewn sidewalk of a Midgardian residential road on their way to the next house on that particular block. Thor gripped his hand, and at the same time he talked excitedly, giddy with the festivities or perhaps with all the sugar he had already consumed. 

They’d just happened to be in the right part of the world for it, this year. October had rolled around and the trees had been well on their way, the green of summer gone in favor of rust reds and fire yellows, becoming tinged with earthy browns. But more than that, they’d been in a place where pumpkins had begun to appear on porch steps. Not to mention the massive bags of excessive varieties of candy that had begun to take their place on store shelves next to cheap costume wigs, skeletal decorations that seemed to indicate an utter disregard of actual anatomy, and pumpkin spice everything. 

So it was of course no surprise that Thor had been curious what it all meant.

“It’s for a Midgardian holiday. It was once a festival for the turning of the seasons, but now to mark it they dress as strange and frightening creatures, or whatever else they please, and go to demand treats from their neighbors,” Loki explained. 

Thor frowned. “But why?”

Loki nearly answered with little more than a shrug—why did the Midgardians do _anything_ they did, honestly?—but, in this case… 

“For the fun of it, I think. It is a chance to become something else, at least for one night.”

Thor considered this for a moment, quiet. Then longer. 

“Would you like to try it, brother?” Loki asked when it became clear enough what the answer would be.

Thor looked up at him, wide-eyed and a little hesitant. “Can we?”

“Certainly,” Loki answered, the grin quirking on his face. “But you will have to decide what thing you would like to become.”

* * *

In the end, what Thor settled on was a frog. 

Many of the common choices among Midgardian children had little relevance for him, of course. They had looked together through the pictures in the flimsy booklet mailed out by a nearby costume shop, and Thor had passed blankly over the caped and plastic-fanged vampire with white face paint and dripping fake blood, had shrugged away the swashbuckling pirate with the plastic sword, had frowned in confusion at the masked maniac from some recent horror movie release that Loki had absolutely not allowed him to view. In fact, Thor showed little interest in any of the more frightening costumes on offer. 

“Perhaps a dragon?” Loki suggested when they neared the end of the booklet. Not that there was any such costume in the shop’s list, but at least Thor had once been fascinated with them, or, rather, with the adventure and challenge they always presented.

Thor considered this for a moment before frowning. “I’m not big enough to be a dragon. And I don’t want to destroy everything.” 

“It’s only pretend, Thor. You would not have to.”

Thor shook his head and seemed to come to a conclusion. “I want to be a frog.”

Loki nearly laughed. “But, Thor, certainly you are not small enough to be a frog. And I thought you would want to eat sweets, not flies?”

“I wouldn’t have to eat flies. It’s only pretend,” Thor echoed very seriously, meeting Loki’s gaze. “And I can just be a very big frog, can’t I?” 

Loki did laugh then. “Of course you can.”

And while he was generally appalled at the sticky, gooey, unnaturally colored forms of much of Midgardian candy, he also wondered if perhaps he might find Thor some gummi worms. 

* * *

There was not a suitable frog costume available, but that was what magic was for, and Loki planned it out while he set Thor to working on painting the pumpkins Loki had gotten for him as another aspect of the Midgardian Halloween experience. 

Something simple, something that would not look out of place among the other store-bought or homemade costumes.

Loki watched as Thor’s small form bent over the large orange gourd, paintbrush covered in bright tempera in his hand. Soft blond hair sweeping over his shoulders.

With a gesture, Loki conjured a green garment, one that would cover Thor from head to toe, subtly shaded to look like damp amphibian skin. A hood bulging at the top with the appearance of frog’s eyes. Gloves that gave the look of sticky finger pads.

All easy enough. Thor would certainly be the best frog in town that night.

And what of himself? 

Thor was still painting away at his pumpkin—apparently it was to become a frog as well.

Loki could certainly understand the appeal of becoming something else for a while. But he was already in such a costume, wasn’t he? The one he’d been wearing for years now. The thing he wasn’t and truly would never be. And everyone they passed on the street tonight would see only that. 

They would see a little boy dressed as a frog, being taken around trick-or-treating by his loving guardian. 

They would not see beneath the costume to the villain, the trickster who’d seen his brother’s misfortune and taken advantage of it. Who had found his brother suddenly shifted into much younger form in the midst of their battle, one moment a roaring opponent, the next a wailing toddler tangled in the much-larger garments he had worn. Stripped of the years, stripped of the memory of their conflict, entirely vulnerable. Helpless against whatever Loki might choose to do to him.

Loki had felt a sudden thrill at that realization.

And Loki, the villain, who had long since sworn himself Thor’s enemy, had gathered him up and taken him swiftly away. And had spent the years since then in hiding him, keeping him from Asgard and from his mortal allies. From anyone else who might have attempted to aid him. 

No one who saw them would be aware of any of that. Which was surely the point, of course, though it did make it rather harder to get any satisfaction from gloating about such a clever scheme.

Loki sighed and put this from his mind, instead thinking that, well, perhaps a green cape for himself would have some panache. And it would fit well enough with a little frog companion.

* * *

When they set out into the neighborhood, just before sundown, it had been to the rattle of dry leaves and the hissing of a chill, damp wind and the sounds of mortal children at frolic, and Thor had gripped tight to Loki’s hand. Especially when any older children in more frightful disguises passed them. 

A mob of realistic zombies, with gruesome rotten flesh appearing to hang loose from their bones and filthy, bloodied garments in shreds on their limbs, resulted in Thor pressing closer to Loki’s side until Loki wrapped a corner of the green cape around him. 

“It is all just pretend. You’re in no danger, brother,” Loki murmured. “Now, do you remember what we are to say when the door is opened to us?”

After the first few houses, though, Thor’s grip loosened, and he no longer cringed back from the flocks of other kids. A few more after that and his initial fear seemed forgotten, replaced by excitement and wonder. And also, probably, replaced by the growing haul of candy in his orange plastic pail. 

Loki made a show of peering into it as they came to a brief halt at the end of a long, leaf-strewn driveway, under the swaying of cheesecloth ghosts in the bare-limbed trees, under the full moon in the darkening sky. 

“You’re doing quite well in your candy-begging, Thor. I think you must be the most wonderful frog any of them have ever seen.”

Thor, however, did not answer.

He was gazing pensively toward the nearby corner, to where the yellow light of a street lamp illuminated the crosswalk and the parents and children traipsing across it. 

“Hm?” Loki murmured, following his gaze and noticing nothing amiss. 

“Who’s that lady?” Thor asked. 

Loki frowned. There was in fact a little cluster of mortal women chatting while their offspring went up to the nearest house, but… “Which one?” 

This time Thor’s voice was little more than a whisper. “The one dressed like a Valkyrie.”

Loki turned again to study the scene more fully. And he was sure he would find there simply a woman in a costume. Ever since Thor’s arrival among the Avengers years ago, the old religion had come back into vogue somewhat. And Loki himself had seen children and adults alike dressed in a cheap imitation of Thor’s adult garb, yellow wigs on their heads and foam-rubber Mjolnirs held aloft (even though the one they imitated was now absent, most of the world believing he had simply been called back to Asgard). Surely some were creative enough to dig up less common representations. Some might even manage to clad themselves in something like a true Valkyrie’s attire. 

Loki told himself that. 

But whoever it might have been, he could not spot them now. 

“Where did you see her?” 

Thor had to peek out from behind Loki’s cape where he had been hiding. “Under the streetlight. But she’s gone now.” 

Loki put a comforting hand to Thor’s back, surprised to find him tensed, fidgeting. “We have seen many strange costumes this night, haven’t we?” 

Slowly, Thor nodded, but he did not look convinced. “She was looking at me.”

“Well, you are a very wonderful frog,” Loki answered. 

But he was secretly glad when after only a few more houses, Thor decided he’d gathered enough candy and was ready to go home. 

* * *

_What if it was not a mortal woman_ , Loki thought that night as he lay in bed.

He’d let Thor stay up late, let him select a few more pieces of chocolate to enjoy while they watched on the television some children’s cartoon involving—apparently—a pumpkin god, let him snuggle close to Loki’s side, arm wrapped around him. 

Then, when Thor had grown sleepy enough not to object, Loki had ushered him to bed and tucked him in, ruffling his hair and telling him to sleep well.

Loki himself found that sleep would not come for him, though, and he’d gotten up several times to look in on his brother, peeking past the door just enough to see the blond head still resting on the pillow, to watch the blanket rise and fall with his breaths. 

What if it had not been a mortal woman simply happening to wear a convincing costume? 

What if Asgard had finally caught up with them?

Honestly, Loki had been surprised it had not happened already. Warding off the official powers of Midgard had been simple for him. Avoiding all of Thor’s former heroic allies with their various skills and abilities, only slightly less so. But from the start he had been simply waiting for the sudden beam of the rebuilt Bifrost, or the arrival of guards in familiar armor, or… _someone_ to come to collect Thor from him. It would probably occur at the least convenient time. And when it happened, there would be a battle, and Loki—well, Loki would likely lose. But it would be his first chance in years to answer all Asgard’s old insults against him directly. It would be exhilarating. And it would mean things would soon be back to normal, as Asgard would almost certainly find some way to restore Thor to his adult form and return his memories, and then… then Loki would no longer be saddled with the task of raising him and caring for him. Honestly, it would come as a _relief_.

It had not happened.

Regardless of Loki’s habitual concealment from Heimdall’s gaze, they had to know. Odin, certainly, had to know. 

The fact that none of them had appeared to confront him was in itself almost enough to make Loki nervous, for he could not fathom what it meant. Why they would leave this situation as it was. Leave Thor in his clutches. 

It was certainly not that anyone in Asgard would not be well aware that his intentions could only be nefarious. 

Had something, instead, happened in Asgard? If there had been some drastic event while Thor was still grown, he would surely have mentioned. Had something happened at just the same moment he was de-aged, or shortly thereafter? 

A few times, Loki had almost been tempted to go find out for himself, just in case. But then he reminded himself that he did not care for Asgard any more than Asgard cared for him. 

All those speculations would be swept away if it had indeed been a Valkyrie that Thor saw watching them. It would just mean that Odin had taken his sweet time in sending anyone to rescue his favored son.

Loki breathed slow breaths, trying to calm himself as he lay abed with his mind still turning the question over and over. He had not planned for this because it had always seemed futile. But now that the threat was at his door, he could not simply give in to it. Never that. It was not in his nature. 

So he lay there planning. The first thing to attempt would be—to run.


	2. Young Gods and New Places

Thor had been with him, like this, for the better part of a decade.

The sudden disappearance of the Avengers’ resident thunder god had not gone unremarked by the mortals of this realm, of course. The Avengers themselves, he knew, were aware at least of the gist of what occurred, so that means of course that the word would have spread, at least in certain channels. By now it had to produce a pretty clear picture. The Thunderer, turned back into a child after an unfortunate battle near the not-entirely-mythical fount of youth, held captive—though no one knew where. A trickster god who had hardly been seen working any evil in all the years since. Mysteries and secrets.

Loki had always been darkly amused at the thought of them all frantically trying to discern what his plan for his helpless brother might be. 

The fact of the matter was, though... he was still trying to precisely figure that out himself. 

His intent was purely selfish, of course. He did know that much. Why else would he go to all this trouble, when there were plenty of others who would gladly relieve him of the burden?

Perhaps, with his influence, he’d be able to raise Thor to villainy right alongside him. A little nudge here, a new perspective there—well, Loki had considered the idea. But Thor was just as stubborn this time as he had been centuries ago during their childhood together. A terror in his own way, sometimes. Messy even on his best behavior, loud and boisterous when excited. When he was angry—which was not unusual—he was almost impossible to calm until his anger was spent. But he was also tenderhearted. Unfairness and injustice made him scowl and pester Loki with endless questions about _why_. Why such things were allowed to occur. Why no one stopped it. Loki always had to fill his little pockets with a handful of gold coins when they went out and about in the cities, for him to give out in generosity to bums and buskers alike.

So much for turning him wicked.

Loki had often wondered whether it would even really be necessary: one of Thor’s greatest flaws had always been his boundless loyalty, and Loki sometimes imagined keeping grown-up Thor beside him as a bodyguard of sorts, protecting him while _he_ carried out his evil schemes. 

… if that were likely, he would surely have convinced his brother to take his side in some other battle in the many years they’ve been at odds, so Loki could not really deceive himself well enough to believe it.

If nothing else, he could think of Thor as a ransom. Just in case he was ever caught and needed some sort of bargaining chip. He could hardly think of one of higher value.

Anyway, while Loki figured that part out, dealing with this young child version of his brother turned out to be at least slightly less difficult than he had at first anticipated.

It helped that Thor remembered just enough—even as young of an age as he’d been returned to, he remembered who he himself was, little prince of Asgard, little god of thunder. He remembered their parents and their home, at least as they’d seemed to him in his first several years of life. He remembered his brother—he recognized Loki when he had first stepped toward him in shock to find out what had occurred in the midst of their last battle. 

He remembered his brother, but remembered only the earliest part of their lives together. And Loki had ensured that he had not learned about the rest. He had hid from Thor any old news reports that showed the whole team of heroes, including one particular blond thunder god. Especially he’d hidden the ones that named the villain that they fought. Loki had prevented Thor from ever finding out about that part. 

And that meant he _trusted_. 

Thor _trusted_ , because he was Thor. And because Loki faked sincerity well. A thin veneer of kindness over a long habit of vengeful cruelty. A long habit of craving his brother’s suffering.

Thor _trusted_ , because in this young form, all he had ever known was Loki caring for him. And he never saw through the ruse in the slightest. 

Loki could tell him whatever he liked about their circumstances, and Thor tended to believe him. And otherwise Thor had been largely content to be led around this realm on what was surely to him merely one long adventure. 

* * *

Loki moved their dwelling place the next day, in a quick, invisible expenditure of magecraft. 

Not too far—a short jaunt was less predictable. A little bit north, a little bit west. Moving them from a tidy suburb with all its identical, echoing streets to the outskirts of a dingy rural village where they would hardly be visible at all.

Thor was used to these moves enough that he merely woke, yawning and rubbing at his eyes in confusion while he stumbled down to the table where Loki had a light breakfast meal ready for him. 

“We moved again?” Thor asked between nibbles at the sweet brown toast.

“Mm-hm,” Loki answered. 

Thor frowned. “Did something happen?”

“Of course not. I just thought it was time for a change.”

The change extended to the weather outside as well. The move north had put them deeper into the decline of autumn, the leaves no longer a riot of flamelike color but instead a mass of clinging dark brown, wet in the gutters and rotting in last week’s piles in the fields and yards. There had been a storm here last night, it seemed. And more storms threatened, rolling across the skies. The air bit sharply with chill. The sun, when it appeared, seemed thin and distant. 

“Can I go play outside?” Thor asked anyway once breakfast was finished.

Loki hesitated, mouth pressed into a line. “Very well. But stay nearby. We’ve only just arrived and you don’t know your way around yet. Stay where you can hear me if I call for you.”

Thor nodded.

And truth be told Loki spent much of the time watching him through the windows. 

He did not want to alarm Thor without reason. He had also been doing his best to let Thor grow into greater freedom; if he continued watching over Thor for long enough, he would have to do so eventually. And right now he was merely letting Thor run about in the yard and explore these new surroundings. With all the magical wards Loki had put on his brother to keep him safe and hidden from the mortal heroes and such over the years... there could not be much risk in that. 

Loki had fully convinced himself that he was worrying over nothing. This move itself had probably been unnecessary anyway, an excess of caution. If Asgard had found them, surely he would not have had the chance to do so. 

Then he saw Thor stop what he was doing and stand, stock-still, staring out toward the road. 

On the other side of the gravel road was another empty field, and beyond that a stand of trees, and beyond that the hill that hid this place from the little cluster of structures that called itself the village center.

Loki craned his neck as he peered out the window. There was a small, glossy yew at the edge of the road, blocking his line of sight, but he had not seen anyone approach from beyond it.

He could not see anything. Nothing that might have caught Thor’s attention so. 

He saw nothing but Thor suddenly turning on his heel and running at full speed back toward the house.

Loki was there when Thor clattered inside, the door slamming behind him. He was breathing fast, his eyes wide. His hair was a mess, tossed by the wind of his flight, a few strands clinging to his brow, its blond darkened by the damp air.

“Thor, what’s wrong? What happened?”

“She was there!” Thor gasped, panting too hard to get the words out easily. “She was watching me!”

Ice and fire warred in Loki’s veins. “Who?”

“The Valkyrie lady!”

“Thor, it cannot possibly be the same woman,” Loki said, pulling back to look at him, and even as he said it, he knew it was false. “We are 300 miles away and no one knows we are here.” He was saying it more for his own benefit than Thor’s. Trying to convince himself.

“It was!” Thor protested. His cheeks were red from the chill, but as that faded it left the pallor of fear. 

Deep breaths. “Did she do anything to you? Say anything to you?”

Thor shook his head. “No…”

Loki recalled how long Thor had stood there as if frozen. 

But Thor rarely lied, even when doing so might have kept him out of trouble. Now and long ago. He had never been much good at deception, anyway. 

“She did not speak to you?”

Thor shook his head again, more insistently. “She was just staring at me. But she didn’t look nice.”

“What do you mean?”

Thor only shrugged, though, and he could not be nudged into saying anything more. Only held tight to Loki again, trembling. 

If it was Asgard come for them, surely they would have done more than that. Surely this would all be over already. Wouldn’t it? 

Loki managed to get Thor calmed down, and he cast several more wards across him and the house. Just in case.

But Loki had to go find out for himself. He had to see if this woman—whoever she was—was still there. If he could see her. He had to find out what was going on. 

Thor watched him, nervous, as Loki pulled on his coat. 

“It will be fine, Thor. Don’t be afraid,” Loki added before heading out the door. 

* * *

The muddy ground squelched underfoot as he crossed the lawn. A fine rain dampened his hair, his face, the shoulders of his coat, and the grey mist it made obscured the road and everything beyond it. 

Perhaps it had simply been a neighbor. Perhaps Thor had not really seen anyone, his imagination merely stirred by Halloween tales. Perhaps…

As Loki neared the road, he saw the shadowy figure, silent and still, just on the other side of it. 

“Hello?” he called out. “Was there something you were seeking?”

But as he approached closer, he saw the figure more clearly.

A tall, dark-haired woman. And she did indeed wear the armor and garments of a Valkyrie. It was no happenstance. No cheap costume. 

She stood at the edge of the road, surrounded by mist, and she stared back at him, expressionless. 

A beautiful face framed by smooth waves of hair pinned loosely back beneath her helm. High, regal cheekbones. Deep-set eyes. A sharp chin and nose. Darkened lips the color of ripe plums.

And a pale stone-grey cast to all her skin that made the features suddenly horrible.

Loki could not breathe. His heart thumped painful in his chest. His nails cut into his palms. And all he could think of was Thor. 

The danger was far worse than Loki had thought. 

This was not a Valkyrie. 

Not Valkyrie.

Dísir.

* * *

The Dísir. Bor’s handmaidens, once Valkyries who carried the souls of battle-killed gods to their reward. And then they had been caught feasting on their flesh instead. 

And this feast would have been crime enough, devouring the godly flesh. But it was more. For the souls of those consumed in this way... the spirit was torn apart as well. Destroyed utterly. Never to reach the eternity that followed. 

For their act of cannibalism, for their breaking of faith and vow, for their vile appetites, the Dísir had been cast out of Asgard and cursed to starve, unable to take the life of any Ás and unable to consume anything they killed.

They had become little more than a legend. A frightful tale, but one that was rarely recalled to mind and almost never named, too dreadful to think of and so forgotten instead. The Dísir, once banished, no longer mattered. 

Sweat ran cold down Loki’s sides as he stared back at her now. As they stared at each other, neither moving. 

The Dísir had been cast out of _Asgard_. They could walk in other realms, if they chose, it seemed.

And the _Æsir_ were safe from them—but Loki had no way of knowing, with what had happened to Thor, if he would still be counted under the same protection. 

Why would she be here, stalking him, if she had not smelled prey?


	3. Old Monsters and Steel Beasts

For years, Loki had known he was a monster.

But he was, undeniably, a different sort than that. 

“You cannot harm him,” he said, planting his feet and staring her down, refusing to be the one to turn away first. “You’re not allowed. What are you here for?”

That was the first thing that got any sort of reaction out of her at all, and it was only the slightest gesture. A twist of a smile. “The only thing I’m not allowed to do is kill him. Strange to think that _you_ lack the imagination to realize how little that can mean. Stranger still that you don’t think I could get any satisfaction simply from making him suffer. He is one of Bor’s bloodline, after all.” 

While she spoke, she had begun walking along the edge of the road. Her motions were as smooth as water. As silent as the mist. 

Loki’s feet tramped over the tussocks of muddy grass to keep pace. “It won’t do a thing for your hunger, though,” he answered. 

Her deep eyes narrowed. “The hunger of the belly fades, after a few thousand years. But there are other hungers. The hunger for revenge—I’m sure you know it well. We are both monsters of Asgard, after all.”

She was still gazing at him… but not quite. Gazing just over his shoulder, toward the house. 

“Give the boy to me.”

Every muscle in Loki’s body was tensed for a fight. “If you harm him… if you even try to take him… I will make you wish you had never been born. I will make every moment of the rest of your unlife a misery.”

The Dís tilted her head. “You are no threat to me or to my sisters. We have been watching you and the boy for some time. We will find you wherever you seek to hide him. And we will take what we want no matter how you seek to stop us.”

“You will _not_ ,” Loki snarled.

“You are not even Æsir,” the woman said. “I could devour you now, if I chose.”

“If you were so sure of that, you’d have done it already.”

She ignored this, instead gazing back at him. “Just think of this, though: I need not ever harm him myself. So much harm can befall a little child upon Midgard. It is a dangerous realm. And he has not got a regiment of warriors and nurses and nannies to watch over him as he once did. Only you.”

Loki could see the sharpness of her teeth within her smile long after she had gone, disappeared into the cold grey haze on the far side of the road. 

* * *

Back inside the house, Loki found Thor waiting, nervous, just beyond the door. 

“Did you see her?” Thor asked. 

Loki would have to tell him. Would have to tell him _something_. He couldn’t keep this all from Thor.

But he could not tell him the whole of it. Could not let him know the extent of the danger they both were in.

Loki mastered his own expression so that he would not give the truth away.

“I did,” he said. “I saw her, and I spoke to her. And you were right that she was a Valkyrie. You were also right that she is not very nice. But she cannot harm you, though she may try to make you think she can. If you see her again, I want you to come tell me right away, Thor. All right? Will you do that?”

Thor bit his lip. He nodded. “What does she want with me?”

Loki thought about this for a moment. “She just wants to frighten you. She thinks it will make her feel strong if she can make you afraid. Many bad people are like that.”

He would know, wouldn’t he? 

In fact, the only way in which he could really claim to be a different sort of monster than she was that the thought of deliberately instilling such fear into a child… the thought turned his stomach. Doing so would be _beneath_ him. That was the only reason he had ceased such games while Thor was in this state, and whenever—someday—he was either restored or grown naturally to adulthood again, Loki would have no qualms about once again opposing his brother, if necessary, with all the malice and cruelty he’d ever had at his disposal, and glorying in his suffering. He just would not do so now.

That was the only difference.

But it was difference enough for him to hate her. Her and the rest of her sisters, wherever they were. Terrorizing a child was _pathetic_. And when the child was _Thor_ … 

Loki would gladly tear them all limb from limb. Just as soon as he could arrange it. 

The first matter, though, was to stop them from succeeding. To get Thor to safety so that they _could_ not terrorize him, or worse. 

The Dís claimed she could track them no matter where they fled?

Well. Loki would have to test that.

“We’re going to play a little game, Thor. All right?” Loki said just a few minutes later, after thinking it all through, putting together a plan. “You know how we have moved across this realm now and then? I am going to move us much more often for a while.”

Thor’s solemn face looked up at him. “Is this because of the Valkyrie lady? Is she chasing us?”

Wasn’t it supposed to be easy to lie to Thor?

“She is. And yes, that’s why. But it’s only because she annoys me; I will not simply _let_ her taunt us so. You don’t need to worry about her. I will take care of everything.”

* * *

It should have worked. 

Each day he moved them, a rapid-fire jaunt across the continents of this realm. North and south. Islands and mountains, deserts and rolling fields. Cities and towns and barren places.

And in each new place, before the day’s end, she was there.

Watching them as a rain-streaked reflection in a shop’s window.

An echo of footsteps behind them in a darkened street.

A dark silhouette figure waiting motionless at the end of their walkway, a cloaked figure standing on the far side of a field as they passed by, face hidden in the deep hood that was no longer out of place as the season drew onward toward winter.

The realization grew worse each time, more like the footstep of doom. Loki putting an arm around his brother’s tensed form to guide him away, feeling the flutter of his racing heart, the wing of his breath.

“It’s all right, Thor. She is just trying to scare us. Be brave with me a while longer and she will go away.”

But she wouldn’t, really, would she? How long could this go on? How long could they endure this? 

Loki could have done so indefinitely, he thought. It was already wearing on him, expending so much magic on running, and planning, and unable to stop himself from thinking all too much about what would happen if he failed. But there wasn’t much choice; he had tried to come up with other ways, and he had thought of none. Well, almost none. Nothing he was willing even to consider, really.

And since there was no alternative, he could manage. He could keep up like this as long as he had to. He would be fine. 

Thor, though… 

Thor, at the moment, was just a little boy. And this was a state of constant upheaval and uncertainty worse than anything he had yet experienced. 

The strain of it was already making itself evident, hour by hour, in him.

* * *

The next day, they were in a new city, and as far as Loki could tell some other Midgardian holiday was approaching, so the streets were teeming. People in thick coats and colorful knitted caps—though really it was not even that cold yet—dodging past each other on the sidewalks, streets a constant hectic jam of brake lights and horns, damp greasy slicks of rainbows on the pavement, the stink of buses belching white fumes into the cold air. 

Perhaps they could simply get lost in the crowd, he thought, as he called Thor along behind him. 

Thor’s feet dragged, though. He had been in a stormy mood all morning, balking and pouting at everything. That was in fact the main part of the reason for this excursion. Loki knew his brother well; his tantrums tended not to endure when there were more interesting things to distract him. At worst, Loki would merely have to wait out his mood undaunted, until it passed on its own. 

So now he simply ignored the petulance. “What would you like for lunch, brother?” Loki asked instead. 

But Thor huffed. Didn’t answer. “Why don’t we just ask for help?” he said, when he said anything at all. 

Thor had already asked a few of these sorts of questions. Of course, that did not stop him from asking again.

“And _who_ are you supposing would be able to assist us?”

“We could ask the Avengers,” Thor said. 

Of course Thor did not know how the suggestion would gall him. Loki found himself gritting his teeth anyway and snorting in distaste.

“Or… or… there’s probably other people who would. If we asked. They’d hide us from _her_.”

That, though, was somehow worse. Not more annoying, but… mortals of any sort were honestly the _last_ people Loki would have ever trusted with Thor’s safety. They were far more fragile than most beings, yet the world they’d shaped for themselves was a death trap, with perils they did not even bother to avoid. Perils born not of malice or cold nature, the sort that were copious on all realms, but instead of carelessness and greed and willful stupidity. Streets teeming with tons of fast-moving metal piloted by idiots and lunatics and the merely distracted. Poisons spewed from all their industry, tainting everything around them, even when it might have been easily avoided. A refusal to take even the most basic of precautions to save their own or others’ lives, till it seemed the height of hypocrisy that they had once chastened him for his villainy, while thousands died for even less reason and they shrugged it off as merely the cost of business.

The Dís herself had taunted him with such perils. And it did worry him. But any other realm they could have fled to… would bring its own dangers. Here, he was at least sure he could keep Thor safe as long as he could keep Thor close.

And Thor did not need to know about any of that. It would only frighten him.

So Loki shrugged. “The mortals of this realm are many things, but I fear such a task would be beyond them, brother.”

Anyway, they were nearing the urban park that held some sort of menagerie. Loki had even read that they kept a heated building containing a variety of examples of Midgard’s amphibians, among lush foliage, for mortals to gawk at.

The sudden, childish stamping of Thor’s foot on the pavement drew him up short.

“You just don’t want anyone to help us!” Thor said. 

People still bobbed past them in a constant flow in both directions, paying them no attention.

Loki pursed his lips. “They can’t whether I want it or not, so we may as well get on with taking care of our troubles ourselves, wouldn’t you say?”

It was exactly the sort of thing that usually worked when Thor got himself into such a state. Usually.

This time...

“But how do you _know_ they can’t?”

This time, Thor seemed determined to test Loki’s patience. “Because I have been studying magic since they believed in the four humors. What do you really think we can discover from them?”

“But maybe… at least it wouldn’t just be _us_ … why don’t you want anyone to…”

“Thor! We are _not_ going to ask these mortal creatures to aid us,” Loki spat in annoyance, hand to his brow, before he could stop himself. “And that is the answer you get. Now cease these foolish questions and come along!”

That succeeded in gaining Thor’s silence. Though Loki’s own reaction probably meant he was more on edge than he had been ready to admit to himself.

… too much silence, actually. 

When he turned back, Thor was gone. Slipped away somewhere into the stream of mortals. 

A sinking feeling, panic rushing through him.

Loki knew it at once. Even before the squeal of tires.

The scream of brakes. 

The sudden hush after.

He practically flew toward the source of the sound. 

And there was Thor, fallen to his hands and knees in the middle of the street, his face pale. Tears hadn’t started yet. He was shaking.

A woman leaping from her car, screaming.

“Oh my god! I didn’t see him! Is he okay?”

Loki barely heard her, a jumble of noise as he pushed past, shoving her aside and dropping down next to Thor. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked, touching hesitantly.

Thor looked up at him, sobbing. 

But in one piece. There were no great spills of blood, no obvious broken bones or other terrible injuries. 

Loki’s ears were ringing, the traffic sounds and clamor of passersby just barely making it through like a hum, as he carefully gathered his brother up off the street, carried him to the relative safety of the sidewalk. Set him down again and looked him over. 

Scraped hands, flecks of dirt ground into them, but all the joints still bending in the right directions. The knees of his trousers were ripped, and a few spots of blood beaded on his torn skin and trickled sluggishly down his leg. Beneath his coat, a bruise had begun to bloom dark on his flank, where the vehicle had grazed him. 

Nothing Loki could not heal in only a few moments. 

_A mortal child would likely be dead._

“Does it hurt anywhere else?” Loki asked, gripping trembling little hands, feeling his own heart pound. 

Thor shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, not looking at him. More tears sneaked free and skidded down his cheeks. 

After a few more breaths, a few more moments of tentative touches to check for flinches, Loki even began to believe it was true. “Why did you _do_ that, Thor?”

The relief was so great, it came out in a rush of tensed, furious words. 

“Running off and almost getting yourself killed! Norns’ sake, you have done many stupid things over the years, but that is simply...”

“I’m sorry, Loki. I didn’t mean to,” Thor whimpered.

And he actually sounded… afraid. Afraid of _Loki_.

“No, no, Thor, that’s not what I meant,” he amended hastily. “I am not blaming you. Not truly. I was… see, if something happened to you, it would be _my_ fault, for not watching over you better.”

Thor’s eyes were fixed on him, wary.

“What sort of brother would I be if I allowed you to come to harm through such a trivial thing as an accident with a Midgardian automobile?” 

Thor frowned, but he seemed to accept this answer. He only sniffled a little while Loki finished the bit of healing magic that was best done right away, and he let Loki then get him up onto his feet, and he obediently grasped Loki’s hand while they walked back in the way they’d come, all other plans forgotten.

Loki did not so much as flinch when he looked up and saw _her_ there, on the far corner beneath the blinking walk sign, watching them both with a cruel, knowing smile.

* * *

But he was shaken. More shaken than he would let Thor see. 

And not simply by the close call. 

Loki was shaken by the growing changes in Thor, and by his own inability to handle them, and by… how much that failure upset him. 

He should not care, should he? He was doing this for his own purposes. If he kept Thor alive, that was all anyone could expect from him, wasn’t it? If he kept Thor safe and fed, clothed and comfortable, entertained him when he was bored and did his best to educate him in the skills and knowledge he would need as he grew… Loki had been doing _all_ of that for years, and that was surely more than could be expected.

What should he care if, for a few days, Thor grew irritable from their current state of uncertainty and tumult? 

Why should it bother him so much that Thor’s eyes had begun to follow him, full of doubt and growing distrust. Why should he care if Thor had begun trying to keep secrets from him. Snapping at him irritably when Loki asked what he had been doing.

He did not know why it bothered him. But it did. And he hated the Dísir for causing it as much as anything else they’d done. 

* * *

It was time for a change of tactics.

No more cities. No more crowded towns. There were too many traps there, too many hidden dangers, too many people Thor could get lost among. 

For their next move, Loki took them far away from it all.

A lone dwelling, deep in the wilds, the brown leaves falling still onto the roof, the sun setting early over the mountains to the west. 

There were perils here, of course—beast and storm, wind and fire—but they were dangers he knew and could defend them against. None of it would surprise him.

Not to mention that perhaps it would prove a more calming environment for Thor. Particularly if it meant they could stop running.

Thor wandered around the little dwelling when they first arrived. Peering into the rooms, out the windows, under the beds, before turning back to Loki, unimpressed. “We’re staying here?”

It was indeed more rustic than Thor was now used to, and Loki wanted to say something to that effect. A wood stove in the center of the main room, its blackened chimney piercing the rough, dark ceiling? The two small rooms at the back, each containing little more than a single broad bed on a heavy wooden frame, with linens soft from countless washings? The tiny water closet with its ancient porcelain fixtures? Years ago, such accommodations would have been luxurious on many of their hunting expeditions.

“I know it’s not much,” Loki answered. “But it won’t be for long. If she sees there is nothing she can do, she will give up.”

Loki insisted it, for his own benefit as much as for Thor’s.

 _This_ plan had to work.


	4. A Hidden Refuge

There was a small stream out behind the cottage, its water clear and fresh, burbling over a bed of small, smooth stones, and they spent the first afternoon in that spot.

The sky was already wintry white, the air was already chill, and probably it wouldn’t be long before ice began to form at the edges of the water. Probably the next time the clouds grew heavy, it would not be rain that fell. But for now, the last breaths of autumn clung tight. 

“Do you think there are frogs,” Thor asked, crouching down at the side of the stream and dipping his fingertips in the water, which swirled around in vees and eddies and made his skin look pale beneath its rushing flow.

Loki watched him. “I think it’s too late in the year for frogs. It’s too cold for them already.” 

Thor made a disappointed sound but continued peering at everything, the moss that grew on the dark soil beyond the rocky bank, the flocks that sometimes passed high overhead on their way south, the blackened walnut husks littering the ground. 

Around them, the dark woods rustled. Above, grey clouds fleeted across the sky, meeting the ground in mists at the horizons. The world held its breath in calm.

There was no sign of anyone else at all, anywhere near their little refuge. They were entirely alone.

Loki allowed himself to believe that it might work.

That same day, before evening came, he told Thor to stay in the house while he went out to see to some things.

The edges. The boundaries.

Tall, dark trees stood sentinel, their high branches swaying in unfelt breezes, bending and twisting like maddened giants with feet fixed in the ground. The moss-green creek their little stream emptied into wound itself into another border, pushing the lands on the other side away. A field of dry thistles, their heads nodding a sallow brown over the black soil below, and an ancient, tumbled wall of stone no more than knee-high: these things marked the remaining borders.

In this way, Loki had drawn an invisible line around this remote place, separating it from the world and thus removing them from the sight of any searching for them within it.

They were still upon Midgard. But in another sense, they were no longer within any realm at all. They were nowhere, and no danger would be able to find them. No danger would be able to reach them.

With any luck, that would be enough to throw the Dísir off their scent. With only a little more luck, the former Valkyries would give up entirely, with their prey no longer in sight. Surely the effort was now far more than the reward of one tiny Asgardian prince to consume or to torment.

Loki walked these edges now, checking the soundness of his handiwork and adding a few new traps that would alert him if anything _did_ manage to find them.

Loki walked the dark ground, under heavy skies, and he saw nothing amiss. If anything, the wilds seemed empty. No beasts rustled in the undergrowth. No birds called. Just the wind, carrying scents of distant storms, carrying the occasional smattering of icy droplets from above, and the brisk cold of the coming winter. 

*

Days passed in a waiting calm, halfway between boredom and tension. 

It did not seem to improve Thor’s mood at all. Loki allowed him to run around and play outside within sight of the cabin, but he remained withdrawn and irritable. 

“How long do we have to stay here?” Thor asked, kicking at the rough-hewn legs of the little table after their supper one evening.

“Not much longer, I think. Perhaps a few more days.”

Thor did not seem to appreciate this answer. The table jumped at a few more sullen kicks. 

“Thor, stop that. I’m not any happier about this than you are, but there’s nothing else we can do.”

Blue eyes glared at him from under a mop of messy blond hair. Thor gave a half-audible mutter.

“What?” Loki asked, eyebrow arched. 

Thor’s nose scrunched. “I said we could just go _home_.”

Loki took a bite of stew, determined to continue behaving as if they were simply having a pleasant meal together. “Where exactly—”

“Home to Asgard! We’ve been on Midgard for years and years, and you’ve never taken me back home.”

It suddenly became very hard to swallow. Thor had not asked such things… in quite some time.

“You used to tell me the Bifrost was broken and that Mother and Father were busy and could not come see us. Now you don’t even say that. You don’t tell me _anything_ about it.”

Heat rushed to Loki’s face. It was amazing Thor remembered those lies. And now he was watching Loki, distrustful, angry. As if expecting him to admit that it _had_ all been lies. As if he could see through it now. 

“The Bifrost _was_ broken,” Loki said. Well, it had been at one point, hadn’t it?

Thor scowled. “Then how did you get here? How did I?”

“There are other pathways, and there is dark energy that can—”

“Then why can we not go home that way _now_?”

“Because I said we can’t,” Loki snapped. “There is no need for us to go back there, anyway. I am perfectly capable of keeping us safe right here.”

“But I don’t _want_ to stay here.” 

Another, firmer kick to the table’s leg struck at just the same moment as distant thunder rolled, and Loki rolled his eyes. 

“And I’m supposed to just let you have whatever you want, am I, little prince?” 

Loki might have at once taken back the spiteful words at the sight of Thor’s face crumpling in miserable fury, had Thor not bolted instead for the bedroom and slammed the door behind himself. 

Instead Loki heaved a sigh and dropped his face into his hands. 

*

Of course Thor wished to go home. Why wouldn’t he? He’d been an unwitting captive of his enemy for the past several years. And he was no more than a child.

So why was Loki so annoyed at the realization? 

For that matter, why had it barely occurred to him as an easy solution to their current dilemma? He could have simply brought Thor back to Asgard, where the Dísir could not tread. He would not really have even needed to make an appearance there himself; he could have deposited his brother on the Bifrost and fled. He’d have been spirited off to safety by Heimdall, surely, and that would have been the end of it. The end of all the effort it had taken over the years for Loki to attend to his brother’s needs in this young form. The end of any worries over his safety against Asgard’s ancient monsters. 

Why did the thought of it make Loki’s heart clench tight? 

He knew why _he_ would not return to Asgard, even if he had been welcome there. But why did he care if Thor did?

Loki found himself gritting his teeth at the thought of home. 

At the thought of Odin, the years of his manipulations, when Loki still somehow believed he might one day be favored as Thor was. At the thought of Frigga—and that thought was worse, because he could not stop the resentment of her, no matter how much he hated it, when she was not here to answer it. He knew she had not meant him any harm. But that was the point, wasn’t it? No matter her kinder intentions, it had not changed a single thing. She had not really helped. She had just stood by more gently, and looked disappointed when he failed. And between Odin and Frigga and the rest of the realm, that was how it ended up that he and Thor—

Loki got up from his seat and just barely managed to stop himself from pacing the floor, or kicking the legs of the table as if he were no more grown than Thor. 

Practical tasks. Necessary, simple things to keep his mind and hands occupied. Washing up the pot and bowls from their supper, while with one ear he listened to the silence emanating from the other room.

All these years he’d tamped it down, hadn’t he? Thor the child was still _Thor_. Still bore all the same inherent traits, the same frustrating nature as the brother Loki had grown up with, and sometimes it was nearly impossible not to answer them with the same anger.

But… Loki had always managed to stop himself, because Thor was a _child_. He was not to blame. He did not remember any of those incidents. He had not _done_ the things Loki recalled. This Thor had not been part of any of it—he barely remembered their parents at all, much less had any comprehension of what poison their family had become over the years, or how it had affected them both.

And if the magic upon him was never lifted, he never would. 

If Loki simply _kept_ him. Kept him away from Asgard. Raised Thor himself. 

Loki’s hands nearly trembled with the gravity of the realization as he dried the last of the utensils. 

But right now, Thor was right. Taking him back to Asgard was what would keep him safe. 

That was without a doubt what Loki should do, if he cared about his brother, as it seemed he did. 

*

The wood of the door resonated under his knuckles. 

“Brother, are you still awake? I would like to speak with you.”

Silence on the other side. 

The door slid open with only a slight creak in the ancient hinges, but with a sudden icy blast. The reason for this was that the window was pulled wide, the view through it showing the dark shadow of the trees under the ice-clear sky specked with stars. 

“Thor, it is cold enough in here to freeze Audhumbla! Why have you got this open?” Loki demanded, rushing over to close it.

One look at Thor proved this a foolish question, for he sat on the edge of the bed with two layers of sweaters pulled on over his favorite frog-costume pajamas. Bobble-topped hat on his head. One boot already on and tied, chilled fingers interrupted in the middle of struggling with the other.

Loki stared, aghast. 

“Thor…”

Thor just scowled. “I’m going home,” he mumbled. 

Loki crouched down before him to look up into his face, so that Thor would not be able to avoid it. He reached out a hand to squeeze Thor’s knee. He forced the words out. “Yes, you are. But not like this. I’ve realized you’re right, brother, so I will take you home.”

This did nothing to change Thor’s expression, though. If anything, it soured further. “I don’t believe you. _She_ said you’d just lie to me again, like you’ve always done. _She_ said Mother and Father don’t want us back because of you, and that’s why we can’t go home. 

_She_. 

Bolts of panic through Loki’s chest.

“Thor, when did she tell you that?”

A shrug, noncommittal. But Loki’s mind was racing, putting all the odd pieces together. The very first time, when Thor had paused at the side of the road. The few times since then, when he had disappeared for a few minutes at play, and insisted nothing had happened. His growing secrecy and sullenness. 

“Please, brother, tell me. When did she speak to you? Have you seen her _here_?”

Thor looked away, petulant, avoiding Loki’s eyes. 

But his gaze flicked briefly toward the window. 

Terror. If she had found them… if she had found a way in through the bounds Loki had set…

He tried not to let the full extent of his fear show as he grasped Thor’s hands instead and begged. “You must not believe her, brother. She is lying to you. I… I _have_ lied to you. But it’s not like that. The reason we have not gone home is because Father is not very pleased with me right now, nor I with him. But he would welcome you back, and he will. You’ll see. I will take you home right now, but we must go quickly and we must not meet _her_ as we go.”

The suspicion was still heavy in Thor’s eyes. “She said you wouldn’t...”

“And why would you believe what she says? Please, Thor. Merely trust me one more time.”

Thor nodded, and though it didn’t seem like his heart was in it, Loki was willing to call it a victory.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Loki hoped they still had time. Though _she_ had apparently been nearby just a little while before, she surely would not be expecting this outcome. If they hurried, they could escape, sneak away, make it out into the far fields—for that was the problem with the bounds he’d drawn, cutting them off from the rest of the realms. They kept out any unwelcome attention, any uninvited invasion. They kept everything within hidden.

Including any signal for aid he might have sent. 

But if they could get beyond those boundaries, he could call to Heimdall, and then it would take only moments to get Thor to safety, even if it—

The door of the cabin swung open before them. And it let in the deep shadows beyond. Still, tense, stale air.

_Wrongness_.

Thor’s hand squeezed hard on his.

And then Loki saw.

A figure, its silvery armor and pale face practically glowing in the darkness, standing out in the gloom only a dozen paces away.

And the figure was not alone. Her sisters stood arrayed beside her. Another, another, standing in the curve of a great circle, and Loki did not have to peer out all the windows to know that they stood on every side of the place. 

He thought of the city. The Dís, standing there beneath the stoplight after Thor was nearly run over, smirking at him as if she had somehow orchestrated it all. As if it had been her own trap rather than a mere accident of poor timing and impulsive carelessness.

Perhaps it had been.

But one set for _him_. A trap to goad Loki into taking Thor to such a place as this, cutting the two of them off from the rest of the realms, where the Dísir could finish the process at their leisure. Waiting long enough for Loki to almost believe he had succeeded. Drawing Thor in, seeming to befriend him, whispering to him until he had practically chosen to go out to them willingly. And finally… 

Loki looked down at his brother, who stared out with eyes wide.

Carefully, Loki closed the door.


	5. Riders in the Sky

“I’ll find us another way out of this,” Loki insisted at once, as soon as the door was locked, for whatever good that would do. (Not much.)

But he did not have any idea how.

They were in a place where Heimdall could not see. The Bifrost could not reach, even if he'd called for it. Loki had made sure of that. 

And he could not simply _move_ them, as he had done so many times; the Dísir had proved already that they would swiftly follow, no matter how he tried to prevent it. And he could not so easily cross the walls he had created either. What would be the point of that?

He did not understand how they had made it past those boundaries, and it unsettled him to face an opponent who defied what he knew. It made every move uncertain. 

Ancient monsters of Asgard, devourers of souls, beautiful warrior women with smears of entrails on their faces... who passed unhindered through any boundaries or wards a sorcerer could set… 

That seemed worse somehow. He had to bite back the panic rising in him as the wind rose outside.

Beside him, Thor’s face had gone pale as he stared at the closed door.

Loki _had_ left a back door, just in case. One of the secret passageways that hardly anyone knew about. But its entryway was out there, near the creek where Thor had hoped to find frogs. Beyond the encroaching circle of the Dísir. He and Thor would need to pass them to reach it. 

They would need a distraction.

“Come on,” he said to Thor.

But Thor recoiled from his outstretched hand. “What are you going to do?” he asked, nervous, wary. 

“I’m going to save us. I’m going to get us out of here.”

Thor still hesitated, frowning. “Are you sure they mean to hurt us? Maybe they just…”

Loki spun on his heel. “Thor! Norns’ sake, you _saw_ them out there. Did they look very kindly to you? They are the _Dísir_. They were banished because they betrayed all Asgard!” 

Thor’s face twisted suddenly. “And you’re a villain who stole me from my friends because you wanted to use me!”

It took a moment for the meaning of the words to even register in Loki’s mind. 

How was Thor asking this, when they were besieged on all sides by ancient monsters? How did Thor doubt him, _now_? 

… how had Thor learned such a thing at all?

Loki had to control his breath, his face. “Thor, what in all the realms do you mean?”

Thor scowled at him, backing away another two steps. Toward the door. “You’re a _villain_. She told me! She showed me. You don’t even really care about me! You tried to hurt me for years! And then, when I was made small and couldn’t stop you anymore, you stole me! My brother grew up to be evil!”

Loki could only stare. It was true, of course. He could hardly deny it. So why did it ache so much to hear it from Thor’s lips?

Thor seemed to catch himself, then, and he swallowed. “And she said they will let me go home if I go with them.”

“Thor…”

How could Loki answer that? 

“Thor, they won’t take you home. They… they want to _kill_ you. And I will not let that happen.”

Thor scowled at him.

Loki took a step nearer. Reached out a hand. “Please, brother. No matter what else I’ve done… I would not have ever let that happen.”

* * *

There was a commotion at the front door as illusion-forms of Loki and Thor emerged from it, slowly, in surrender, with illusion-Loki loudly trying to threaten, trying to wheedle a truce, trying to bargain for their lives. 

Meanwhile, Loki sneaked out the back window and lifted his brother out after him. And then, crouching low in the darkness and trying to be as silent and swift as deer, they ran.

Ran toward the stream, toward the hidden passageway.

Too soon, a bright flash and a glittering shockwave of force indicated that at least one of the women had approached close enough to dispel the illusion and to set off Loki’s hasty trap. 

Too soon, and a ghastly shriek arose from far too near, and the sounds of approach. 

They panted cold air. Thor’s small hand sweated in his. The frosted grass crunched beneath their feet. 

The passageway was just ahead. But the Dísir were closing fast behind them. Too fast. Too fast.

They would not make it. Had it just been him, he might have. 

Loki could already tell they would not make it. 

They still had to try, didn’t they?

_Or he could give in and take the plan of last resort. The thing he had been avoiding all this time_.

A split second it took to decide. 

And then, in a last moment of desperation, the clamor of the chase grown loud behind them, Loki slowed just enough to concentrate on casting a message through the passageway instead. 

The moment after it left his fingertips, he was struck swiftly and heavily from behind, sending him tumbling to the damp, cold ground as Thor’s hand slipped away from his. 

He heard Thor’s scream.

Then darkness came down.

* * *

The first thing he became aware of, when consciousness returned, was the cold. Cold all through him, so that he felt he could barely move. 

Cold ground beneath him, leaching the heat from his body, and darkness all around.

The next thing he began aware of was the muffled cries, the sounds of struggling.

_Thor_. 

Loki tried to push himself up, but his limbs moved sluggishly. _What had they done to him?_

Whatever it was, he was surrounded by a ring of dark figures. And when at last he turned and spotted the Dís holding his brother, the sight that greeted him sent a shudder through his body. It was the same one as before, he thought—but changed. Far less lovely. Her sharp teeth were lengthened in her mouth. Her cheeks were deep caverns. Her eyes were pools of emptiness, with something dreadful burning at the bottom. 

And her hand was clapped over Thor’s mouth, while the other held tight to his wrist, long claws digging into the soft flesh so that a trickling line of blood ran down as he tried futilely to pull himself away from her. 

“We thought we should wait for you,” she said, with a voice like velvet, “though we are only taking what you did not want in the first place.”

Tears streamed from Thor’s blue eyes. Even in the dark, Loki could see the fear in them, the misery. He felt each hot droplet. 

As Loki watched, frozen, the hand that had been covering Thor’s mouth moved instead to stroke his tender cheek. The pale fingers made a graceful form. Their clawed tips left a soft red line. She smiled down at little Thor, sharp teeth gleaming in the starlight. “And you should thank us as well. We are merely rescuing you from your wicked brother. Death is better than captivity, is it not? You know that already. Proud, brave boy. Just a little pain, then you will suffer no more.”

“You cannot,” Loki shouted, trying to shake off the stasis that held him. The burning of rage helped. “You cannot kill him. The curse will not allow it. Let him go!”

Her twisted mouth bent upward into a smirk. “What curse would that be? Would you mean the one whose fetters finally fell from all our limbs when you gave us a way to walk free of the realms in which they bound us?”

The cold crept back as he understood. 

_He_ had released them. Unwittingly. Thinking he was _protecting_ himself and Thor.

“Let him go,” Loki yelled. Pleaded. “He has done nothing to you!”

“What does that matter?” the Dís hissed. “He is a prince of Asgard.”

“As am I!” Loki answered, jaw set and teeth gritted. “Let him go, and you can feast upon me instead. I will go willingly. Just let him go!”

He could feel Thor staring at him. He could not bear to return his gaze. Not without being able to explain… to tell him… 

So he merely put all his energy into pleading silently with the Norns.

The Dís tilted her head, considering. The rest of them around the circle whispered and murmured, until they all seemed to come to a decision at the same moment.

“Ah, but his screams were too sweet,” said the one with Thor in her grasp.

Then her clawed hand dropped yet further, wrapping around Thor’s throat. 

“Now listen with us to the music of the gurgling of his final breaths.”

In that moment, thunder rang out. 

Not Thor’s thunder. Not like that. Dark and full of dread. Thunder rolling like hooves stampeding across the sky. Thunder cracking like great walls breaking down. 

Little Thor gaped upward at the boiling clouds, clouds that had not been there only moments before. 

Thunder, loud and louder, like a storm rushing nearer at breakneck speed. 

Thunder…

… and then a silver spearhead burst through the Dís’s breastplate, gleaming, followed by a waterfall of black blood. 

So well aimed it was, straight through the heart, that her hand at Thor’s throat went limp just before her body collapsed. 

A cry of outrage and alarm rose from the circle of Dísir all around and closing in.

In that moment, a mounted figure appeared from behind the fallen Dís and plucked Thor from the ground, bending and swooping him up with one arm.

The rider, beneath his travel-stained hood, wore a patch to cover a missing eye.

Loki could only watch, helpless with relief and loss.

All around, the thundering continued as the rest of the host swept upon this place. 

Odin would surely take Thor back to Asgard now. Of course he would. Loki knew he should expect nothing else. That was what it would take to keep Thor safe. 

He did not expect the rider to cross the space between them and deposit Thor into his arms just as he managed to get his feet beneath himself, that one cold eye staring back at him.

“Go!” Odin shouted. “Take him away from here!”

Loki blinked but hesitated no longer than that. With Thor held tight against him, he ran.

“That was our father!” Thor cried out once he’d gathered his wits. “Loki, that was our father! He was here!”

Loki made no reply as he clattered over the dark ground, until the sounds of battle were far behind them and the boundary he’d made had passed under his feet, and even then he did not stop until it was miles gone.


	6. Going Home

A cheap motel in a northern town, the season’s first snow on the trees nearby, weighting down the branches until they bowed low into the shadows cast by yellow streetlights. Half-empty parking lot, wet dark tracks through the white blanket upon the pavement.

Inside, in the warm but hollow space, the quiet sounds of a television down the hallway, they rested.

Loki healed Thor of the wounds he’d taken. The little cuts and scratches on his arm, his face, his neck. A few other minor bumps and bruises.

He was under no illusion that they had very long, though. Assuming Odin prevailed, of course, he would surely follow them here. 

“Are you all right, brother?” Loki asked when all his physical injuries were tended. 

Thor looked at him and nodded, but Loki had no idea what the feeling in his eyes was. Uncertainty? Confusion? They were still a little red around the edges and swollen from crying and from cold. It only made them look bluer.

The room Loki had gotten them held a pair of beds, and he sat down now on the one across from where Thor sat with his legs dangling. Loki leaned his hands on his knees. Thor fidgeted. 

There were things they needed to speak of, weren’t there? While they still could? And he was the elder of them, right now, so he ought to be the one to begin. 

“I am sorry for lying to you,” he said. “Some of the things she told you are true. I have been a villain on this realm. I have done wretched things. I did even try to hurt you, sometimes, when you were bigger. But she was wrong when she said I do not care about you.”

Thor considered this, biting at his lip, and Loki took in the sight of him, from the messy blond mop to the thick wool socks Loki had insisted upon, so that his feet would not get cold as winter approached.

It was so different from when they’d been children together. Back then he had been a rival in a conflict Loki had not chosen, but from which there was no escape. There had been no alternative, no way to change it. Laying down arms would have been the same as admitting defeat. 

When he’d found Thor before him, tiny and vulnerable, though… Loki’s heart had thumped with longing. 

It felt the same now, and it was just as hard to admit it. But he needed to, didn’t he? They did not have long. And after this, after Odin took Thor back to Asgard, they might not meet again for centuries. 

“I know you don’t remember any of what happened between us before, but many things went wrong. Some were my fault. Not all. But it doesn’t matter. I... missed you. That is why I did not want to take you home for all this time.”

Would Thor understand any of that? Could he possibly? 

“But I would not have been able to bear it if something had happened to you tonight. And I’m sure Father will be here to take you back before long. So you will be going home soon.”

Thor frowned, uncertain. As if he wanted to trust but wasn’t sure he should. 

“For now, you should rest if you can. It is past your bedtime, and it has been a long day,” Loki added.

Thor nodded, still quiet, and curled up on the bed, letting Loki draw the blankets over him to keep away the chill. 

* * *

It was midnight almost precisely when the knock came on the door, and on the other side of it stood Odin. No longer the rider at the head of the wild hunt but instead looking like an aged mountain man, a stained grey coat over his shoulders and a rough leather eyepatch on his face above the scraggly white beard. 

Instead of inviting him in, Loki stepped forward, not caring about the chill cutting through his own flimsy shirt.

“He’s sleeping,” he said, by way of explanation, to which Odin raised a brow, as if this were an interesting but minor point.

All of a sudden Loki had never felt so bitter. It had been years since they’d come face to face like this, and all the old anger was still there, just waiting. 

“Could you not have waited until the morning? Could you not at least have given me that?”

He’d _tried_. He had really never had any examples to follow for how to take good care of a child without twisting them, without wounding them, had he? And yet he’d _tried_. Without admitting to himself that was what he was doing. And now Odin would simply carry Thor away, undo it all, as if none of it mattered.

Odin looked at him oddly. “Waited until morning for what? What do you think I am here for?”

Loki could only gape at him. It was too obvious. What other reason could there possibly be?

“I came here to tell you that the Dísir are no more,” Odin added when Loki did not oblige him by answering. “I have taken care of it.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed, and he had to resist the urge to rub at the rising gooseflesh on his arms. “So? Am I supposed to be grateful? _I_ did not call them down upon us, nor did I create them, though I know how easy it seems to be for you to blame me for everything, even things that happened before I was yet _born_.”

Odin sighed. “No, you need not be grateful. But you did call for _my_ aid, and I gave it. I thought you might at least wish to acknowledge that.”

“Very well.” Loki made a low, mocking bow. “Your _inestimable_ aid is duly acknowledged.”

This was no more than a distraction, a delay. The spite he felt now was better than what would come next, when the discussion would inevitably turn to what would be done with Thor. 

In the same weary, unamused tone, Odin went on. “I might also have thought that saving both your lives might mean I was owed at least a few moments with my sons.”

“This conversation has already lasted several _moments_ longer than I’d have chosen. And after you take Thor back, you’ll have as many _moments_ with him as you like.”

Whatever Odin might have said in answer, it was interrupted by the creaking of the door at Loki’s back, and the appearance of little Thor’s face poking hesitantly around the edge of it. His sleepy eyes grew wide at the sight of Odin. His cheeks flushed red. 

“Father?” he said. “Have you come to take me home?”

Loki steeled himself for the inevitable.

Odin considered his answer, though, and it came slowly. “Only if you wish to come home, my son.”

It seemed that Thor had not expected this any more than Loki had, for his mouth dropped open, and he glanced back and forth between the two of them, uncertain. 

The only thing Loki could do was give an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I guess you may as well come inside, then.”

* * *

“Loki, am I correct in guessing that you would not choose to return to Asgard, even with assurances that there would be no locked cell in your future there?” Odin asked, seated as he was at the rickety little desk by the window, while Thor sat on one of the beds and Loki stood, too antsy to stay still, and—no, leading Thor around for Midgardian trick-or-treating was no longer the most surreal experience of his life. Seeing the Allfather of Asgard holding court in a cheap motel room definitely surpassed it.

Still, he nodded, with a tip of his head. “I can’t say you’re wrong.”

“And you’re willing to continue looking after your brother here upon Midgard, if he wishes it?”

Another nod. Though Loki was not at all sure where this was going, because it simply was not possible that Odin was giving Thor the _choice_. 

“You are willing to take all responsibility for his well-being?”

Loki scowled. “I have done so all this time, haven’t I?”

Another raised brow, but Odin did not take the bait.

“And Thor. Have you been happy here, with Loki?”

Thor looked between them as he nodded. 

“Would you prefer to stay with him?”

Hesitation and silence and Thor fidgeting where he sat, playing with the toes of his thick wool socks.

“You need not decide forever. You will always be welcome to return home. But it seems your brother wishes to be with you, and it is all right if you wish it as well.”

Thor’s eyes lifted, huge and blue. “Is it really okay?”

Odin smiled slightly. Nodded. 

It was clear what Thor’s answer was.

“Very well.” 

* * *

Odin did extract a few promises before he departed. 

“Thor, be good for your brother, if you can,” he said, somehow sternly.

“I will, Father.”

“And Loki, do not wait until all is dire before calling for aid, next time you need it.”

“I will do my best to ensure there is not a _next time_.”

“I suppose that’s adequate,” Odin said. “Also, if you could manage to let Heimdall watch over him as well, I would feel much better about this arrangement. That is not a stipulation, but it would be a welcome gesture on your part.”

Loki allowed a wry quirk of the lips. Doing so would also tend to make _him_ visible…

“Otherwise I have to go to much greater lengths.”

Naturally.

“And know that if I do ever find a way to undo whatever magical workings these are and restore your brother to adulthood, I will do so.”

Loki’s mouth pressed into a line. “I’d expect no different.”

As Odin turned to leave, heavy footsteps creaking softy on the worn floor, Loki could not hold the question back any longer. 

“Why?”

Odin turned back and gazed at him, that single eye deep and fathomless. “I have known you were both here for some time. I knew when this change happened to Thor. I have been watching over you both. And you, Loki… you are reckless and foolish and stubborn. But you are also right. And you protected him against the Dísir far longer than anyone else could have done alone. So if he wishes to stay on Midgard with you, I will trust him to your care.”

Loki frowned. “Right about what?”

A rueful twist of the lips, as if Odin had somehow not expected him to latch onto that detail. “That perhaps you will do a better job than I did. With either of you.”

“I still don’t forgive you,” Loki blurted out when Odin turned again toward the door. 

This time Odin did not look back. “I do not expect you to.”

Only moments later, the Bifrost cast its brief, brilliant rainbow glow on the snow outside and through the motel’s pale curtains.

* * *

And then they were alone, with no ancient monsters chasing them. 

Thor had nearly been killed in front of him just hours ago, and it had been the greatest horror Loki had ever felt. And now they were both safe.

Just a few hours ago, Thor had believed Loki did not care about him. And now, when given the chance to return home to Asgard, Thor had instead chosen to stay with him. 

The tears came upon him suddenly, sitting on the edge of the bed, in the middle of getting his boots off.

And the way his shoulders shook, he almost didn’t feel the dip of the mattress as little Thor crawled over to him. 

“Loki?” Thor said. “Loki, are you all right?”

When Loki did not immediately answer, Thor moved to throw his arms around Loki, trying to soothe him. 

And that—Loki’s chest suddenly ached with adoration. He wrapped his arms around Thor as well and for a moment just held him. This small form. His beloved brother, after so long.

When he felt he could, he pulled back. Stroked a hand down Thor’s cheek, until it came to rest at the edge of his neck, soft silken blond against his knuckles. A familiar gesture, but one he had hardly known from this side.

He nodded, smiling, though the tears still flowed. 

“Yes, brother,” he said, and he meant it. “We’re both going to be all right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some easter eggs in case anybody missed ‘em:   
> \- This version of the Dísir obviously borrows heavily from the comics version as we see them in the Siege arc, with my own spin on a few details.   
> \- Little Thor’s fascination with frogs is also, of course, a comics reference to the time Loki caused Thor to be turned into the frog of thunder in the classic Walt Simonson run, and how he befriended another frog who would go on to wield a tiny sliver of Mjolnir.   
> \- Odin’s arrival from the sky, however, is a mythology reference to the legend of the Wild Hunt, in which Odin leads his mounted warriors on a ride through the sky at Yule, and anyone caught out on the road by them will be... well, possibly killed, possibly carried away to join their ranks. Who knows. But you'd generally want to avoid them when you hear them coming. 
> 
> Also, for anyone who for some reason wants a less happy ending, there may be a Super Horrifying Alternate Ending at some point.
> 
> Finally, thank y’all for reading, and I hope you liked how it came out! And since I’m posting this last chapter only a few hours before the end of 2020... here’s to better days ahead for all of us.


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